Family Safety location tracking not working

Anonymous
2023-03-05T01:16:51+00:00

Hello. I have two children with Android phones (Samsung S21's). We have used Microsoft Family Safety for a few years and location tracking has worked perfectly until a few weeks ago when it stopped updating their locations.

I looked at every setting on both their phones, making sure all of the recommended location settings, security settings, battery settings were correct. Still couldn't get their location which showed they were both "In the house" when they were actually at school.

I uninstalled the app from both phones and reinstalled it. I followed all of the security prompts for the recommended settings. Both phones started to report their location again.

However... one of my children is on a school trip. Their phone last reported in five hours ago from a service station 250 miles away. They are now at their destination, but the Microsoft Family Safety app still shows them where they were five hours ago (extremely worrying for a parent).

Looks like the probkem has happened again. This must be a Microsoft problem What are the chances of both my kids phones stopping reporting their location at exactly the same time?

Come on Microsoft please fix this. Our children are very important to us and the app is called Microsoft "Family Safety".

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Family and online safety

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  1. Simon Allison 166 Reputation points
    2023-11-16T12:30:52+00:00

    Here is an update and hopefully a fix soon, you may have tried the recent update of the app, and for some it worked for a short while then lost the location again.

    Dear Customers,

    We value your trust and want to be more transparent with you, so we want to share an update regarding our progress on resolving the location issue.

    Here is the update:

    We have discovered some anomalies in our logs, and we have made some progress in our investigation to fix the location issue. One of our internal services is failing to upload the location data, which could be one of the main causes of the location inaccuracies.

    We will keep you informed as we learn more about this issue.

    Thank you for being a valued member of our community. We really appreciate your support.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-04-25T02:56:23+00:00

    This has been going on for months. This service worked great until January or February. I am paying for this service as part of my premium subscription and am no longer able to take advantage of this service.

    Microsoft must offer refunds for premium subscription members until the issue is resovled.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-04-07T12:50:56+00:00

    Android phone users.. you can still see/share your location with native Google Maps app.

    Google Maps > Location Sharing > Select your family member > set time to unlimited
    then do it again from their phone to you.

    Boom, you can see each other in real time and with no detriment to existing battery life as maps already tracks location natively anyhow.

    You can even set up the same location notifications you had in Location Safety app (i.e. arriving/departing from school, etc).

    It also updates faster and you can create shortcut widgets to your family or individual members on your home page.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-03-28T15:11:37+00:00

    Thanks Diego. Seems that the website is working for some and not others. The locations show the same for me on the website as they do on the app - me 5 days ago, my wife 6 days ago, and my son 26 days ago.

    @Microsoft - When will you post some kind of update to this? There are several threads on this issue that have been going on for about two months now.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-03-26T18:00:21+00:00

    Same problem my wife and I and our son have S21s all different versions but out last location update shows days to months ago. I've followed all the tips and reinstalled and none of our locations have been updated in the app. Yet when I go into the app it shows my location with the blue dot, but everyone else sees my location from 6 days ago.

    The web also shows all of our old locations.

    My daughter has an iPhone and everything works for her. This problem started February 19 from what I can see.

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